MOVIES

CRITIQUING NOSTALGIA

Why Everyone should watch Walt Disney's Song of the South

By Elliott Ainsley

What sort of song?

Around 40 minutes into Disney’s controversial 1946 musical Song of the South, there is a short musical scene that exists mainly to reaffirm the narrative framing device. We hear a rousing, nostalgic chorus sung by a group of black field hands, who walk across the idyllic film-set version of a Reconstruction Era plantation. The melody is derived from the traditional folk song “Midnight Special”. This plays a part in the nostalgia, which is then furthered by the lyrics ‘let the rain pour down, let the cold wind blow, gonna stay right here, in the home I know’. There is a slow reprise of this song later in the film, when the music fades away as our main character; Uncle Remus, who at this point has been banished and is packing his things, reflects “Dis here’s the only home I knows”. Both times we hear this song, the camera neglects focusing on the faces of the singers, whose words advance the underlying message of this film: that this time now long past “’twas better all around.

Part of the controversy stems from the fact that at no point during the film is there any title card, line of dialogue, or set piece that makes it clear when the story is meant to take place. While in fact it is set during the Reconstruction Era, after the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the setting reads rather confusingly as though it were set during during the Antebellum South. This ambiguity seems intentional, rather than some sort of accident or oversight.

In doing so, Song of the South fulfills that quintessential Disney objective of immersive theming, a dedication to aesthetics above historical accuracy. This is the entire premise behind the Disney parks, each ‘land’ is meant to engage guests in elaborate and fully developed worlds. Main Street USA is classic Americana, Frontierland recreates the pioneer days of the wild west, Tomorrowland is meant to give guests a peek into the wondrous future. Disney films are no different. Song of the South attempts to capture a romanticized plantation, making it roughly a film version of the de facto anthem of the Confederacy I Wish I Was in Dixie.

A strange aesthetic

All of the music in the film advances this aim. The titular song that plays over the opening credits is a good example, its lyric creating a deep sense of nostalgia: “I seem to hear those gentle voices calling low, out of the long long ago. This heart of mine is in the heart of Dixie, that’s where I belong! Singing a song, a song of the south.” It could be argued that it’s just part of Disney’s intention to capture a particular mood or ambience of the era, but we should ask ourselves why Disney would encourage viewers to reminisce so fondly over an era of deep oppression, exploitation and violence. Yes, the film takes place post-slavery, but this is not clear. If the company wanted to avoid being labeled racist, they would have included more obvious indications that this isn’t meant to portray a fondness for the slavery-era plantation south. Without dialogue, title cards or other indications of time period, it is clear that Disney didn’t want to risk alienating the large part of their audience that is indeed nostalgic for such times. Song of the South has a sentimental portrayal of jolly black cooks and field hands and happy-go-lucky old men that the film reduces to little more than entertainers for the white children, singing songs and telling stories in an exaggerated vernacular. Through this, the film gets to appeal to both sides.

On one hand, those viewers who truly are nostalgic for the Antebellum south get to experience it without opposition. After it’s 1946 debut, the film was re-released in theaters four times. In 1956, 1972, then in 1980 to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the original Uncle Remus tales, and finally in 1986. Each time, Song of the South allowed viewers to escape into a world unchallenged by the ongoing Civil Rights Movement and protests against racial inequality. On the other hand, anyone who takes issue with the film’s insensitive portrayals can be reminded of how it actually is set during the Reconstruction. All the black characters are freed from enslavement, and are portrayed as willingly, gladly staying on this kindly old white lady’s plantation. Over and over again, the message of the film advocates that things were better as they were, and we should not try for change. This is reinforced through its music and animated story segments; the lesson learned by Br’er Rabbit in the very first tale Remus tells young Johnny is that you’re better off staying where you’ve always been and facing the troubles you’re familiar with rather than progressing into new troubles.

Folk Tales have history and not all of it pleasant

Song of the South is based on a collection of stories from the 19th century, first published as Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings. American folklorist Joel Chandler Harris collected and transcribed these while visiting the slave quarters on the plantation of his employer; Joseph Addison Turner. While at the Turnworld Plantation, Harris spent time visiting the slave quarters to listen to stories told to him by enslaved people like George Terrell, Old Harbert and Aunt Crissy. These stories had originated as African folktales of many different trickster animal heroes, then were passed down through oral tradition and modified over the years to become the stories of one rabbit protagonist. Harris began to write them down and publish these in what would eventually become seven volumes. Harris created the character Remus, a fictional amalgamation of actual individuals Harris knew, to be a central narrator for all these stories. Harris’ work is now controversial; as he appropriated these stories from African-Americans without crediting them.

Three of these tales —Br’er Rabbit earns a Dollar a Minute, The Fable of Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby, and Br’er Rabbit and his Laughing Place— are featured in the animated portions of Song of the South, narrated by the main character Uncle Remus, who is played by actor James Baskett. The live-action framing device follows the story of a young boy named Johnny (played by Disney favorite Bobby Driscoll) while he’s visiting his grandmother’s plantation. Johnny deals with an absent father, bullying, and eventually unspecified injuries from being trampled by a bull. He finds not only joy in the tales Remus tells him, but also (completely unexplained and thus baffling) miraculous healing powers as well. The climactic trauma of Johnny being trampled disappears when Remus returns from his brief exile to hold the boy’s hand and tell him stories of Br’er Rabbit. These live-action scenes have been largely forgotten, mostly because the Disney Corporation has chosen to keep overt references to these controversial scenes out of their merchandise and theme parks, but also in part because when the scenes aren’t indulging in melodrama, they’re deeply boring.

Song of the South has never been released on any home media format in the United States for that reason, since its release critics have been pointing out that the portrayal of its black characters are stereotypical, and their exaggerated vernacular speech is offensive, not to mention the problem in the underlying nostalgic themes of glorifying the ‘simpler time’ of the plantation South. Despite this, aspects of the film have found their way into popular culture, recontextualized and divorced from their original context.

You can fall into the briar patch

The popular Disneyland dark ride Splash Mountain is derived from this film, but at no point while in its queue or riding the log flume past over a hundred peppy Audio-Animatronic characters does the ride ever make reference to the live actions portion of Song of the South. Any issues connected to race have been rendered conveniently absent. The only reference to even the narrator of the stories portrayed in this attraction are relegated to the queue area. One quote painted on the wall is: “It was a time when the critters were closer to the folks and the folks were closer to the critters, and you might even say things were better all around.” None of the quotes are presented with a credit of any kind to their speaker; Remus. Noticeably, they haven’t used the deliberately misspelled dialect present in the Joel Chandler Harris stories that the film is based on, or the exaggerated deliberately spelled-out vernacular from the script of the film where the quote is: “Twas a long time ago. An’ in dem days, eve’thing was mighty statisfactual. De critters, dey was closer to de folks, an’ de folks, dey was closer to de critters… an’ if you’ll ‘scuse me for sayin’ so, ’twas better all ‘round, yes suh…”

History without context

The Disney Corporation is comfortable with claiming the animation and music from the film as their accomplishments; especially award-winning ear-worm Zip-ah-Dee-Do-Dah, while outdated and offensive aspects like this vernacular have been disregarded entirely in the theme parks. While the visuals are scrubbed clean of racist controversy, it’s notable that instrumental versions of songs such as Camptown Races or Dixie —music that came out of blackface Minstrel shows— are audible throughout the queue areas and exits of the ride. Splash Mountain has been in operation since the summer of 1989, but only this year has the Disney Corporation responded to protests and announced it would finally address the racial controversies of its source material by re-theming the log flume around their 2009 animated film The Princess and the Frog. This is only the second Disney film to have a black protagonist; the first of course, being Song of the South over sixty years prior. Today, the erasure of any reference to the controversial live-action scenes on Splash Mountain have not been enough for critical audiences, any reference to Song of the South has been deemed unacceptable.

So, it seems that Song of the South is set to fade completely into history, scheduled to be forgotten along with all its humiliating controversies. It’s been prepared to go the way of the Censored Eleven or Disney’s other shames; early racist cartoons like the 1933 short Mickey’s Mellerdrammer. But is this the fate Song of the South deserves?

This, too, is complex history, though recent

In trying to understand problems like offensive representation or racial stereotypes, or even the aesthetics-driven capitalist motivations of everyone’s problematic fave Disney; one has to understand history. Without the context of where these stereotypes and portrayals came from, it’s nearly impossible to understand why these still pervade our society today. It’s easy to critique the past, to look back on entertainment like Song of the South and declare it racist and irresponsible, but how do we come to terms with such problems in our current media? Splash Mountain’s theme replacement The Princess and the Frog has not been immune to controversy. There were loud and extremely valid outcries from audiences who were let down by Disney making the first black princess spend over half her onscreen time as a frog.

Much of that controversy is complicated; it comes from modern viewers who aren’t familiar with the long history of animal characters standing in for black stereotypes, but an educated viewer can’t watch Song of the South and miss hearing remnants of Minstrel shows in the voices of Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear. As a young white-passing child, I enjoyed the controversial singing crows in Disney’s 1941 animated feature Dumbo. After being called a racist, I learned at a very early age to critique my entertainment and unpack these more or less hidden histories. This practice is not one I see often; cancel-culture pervades our society at every turn, where viewers learn one uncomfortable fact about a piece of entertainment and then declare it completely unacceptable and incapable of being enjoyed without stopping to consider context, intention, or history.

Hattie McDaniel struggled in so many ways

I am not arguing in defense of Song of the South. It is an awkward film at best, and is tied to some very uncomfortable pieces of history throughout it’s production, debut and numerous theatrical re-releases. The first black actor and first black actress to receive Academy Awards are both in the film. James Baskett’s award was only an honorary one, given “for his able and warm-hearted characterization of Uncle Remus, friend and storyteller to the children of the world” and because the film debuted in the then-racially segregated city of Atlanta, Georgia, Baskett was not even allowed to attend this premiere. Hattie McDaniel, who plays Aunt Tempe in Song of the South, had earlier won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role of ‘Mammy’ in the 1939 controversial epic Gone with the Wind. The accomplished McDaniel was the child of two formerly enslaved parents, and due to Hollywood’s racism, in her acting career McDaniel was constantly relegated to characters of cooks, maids and servants. Many of these characters she played were either enslaved, or like her character Aunt Tempe in Song of the South, indistinguishable from such. The film’s emphasis on a caricatured black vernacular, such deliberate misspellings present in the script itself alone renders it ignorant, the refusal to accurately acknowledge the true time period setting is irresponsible.

However, I am arguing in defense of viewing Song of the South, and by extension, in defense of viewing any and all controversial media. We need to discuss racial stereotypes and the portrayals, the representation in our products and entertainment today. I believe a crucial part of understanding where the problems arise today is understanding where these problems originated. The recent announcement that the Quaker Oats Company is going to discontinue the use of product mascot ‘Aunt Jemima’ as it is based on a racial archetype of the Mammy brought about some confusion over the controversy. Modern viewers looking at her perfect hair and big pearlescent earrings did not see the overly racialized origins from before her art style was changed to respond to audiences who desired less offensive artwork, and had to learn for the first time about these uncomfortable origins. Withholding Song of the South so entirely does carry with it the accidental message that engaging with historical issues is not to be done, that the verdict has been ‘we don’t talk about that film, it’s racist’ without encouraging individuals to really examine for themselves why these stereotypes or tropes are harmful, which in my opinion, is a very good idea.

They were smiling, but these were difficult moments

Approaching historical content, be it entertainment or otherwise, is important. Even the most offensive content is not all good or all bad, there are parts of everything that can be enjoyed, alongside understanding the issues they carry. It must be said that advocating to engage with controversial media is a complicated and risky stance to take, especially without education or context; further racial insensitivity could be sparked by viewing historical media. The 1915 silent drama The Birth of a Nation comes to mind, as this film is acknowledged as one of the reasons the then largely disbanded and waning Ku Klux Klan gained new interest and remerged. However, I believe risks like these must be taken, as evaluating and thinking critically about our entertainment is advantageous. Should we neglect to learn our own histories in everything, even things as seemingly innocuous as an early 20th century musical film aimed at children, we won’t be able to move past these histories. Representation will remain limited and stereotypical, the stories we tell each other will stay focused on overly nostalgic memories and entertainment will continue to preach to us that the way things were ‘twas better all around.

©Elliot Ainsley and the CCA Arts Review